Saturday, September 3, 2011

RUMOR: DISH NETWORK LAUNCHING BLOCKBUSTER STREAMING SERVICE

Dish Network already has its DishOnline streaming service for its own paying customers, but it looks like it's now set to take direct aim at Netflix with a standalone subscription service that will be open to everyone. According to Bloomberg, that will operate under the company's recently acquired Blockbuster brand and, in what's surely a bitter pill for Netflix to swallow, it's said to include titles from Starz (which also handles movies from Disney and Sony). As you'll recall from yesterday, Starz announced that it will be pulling all of its titles from Netflix in February of next year after it failed to reach an agreement with the company.
Details on the service otherwise remain a bit light -- including any word of a possible subscription price -- although Bloombergsays it "may" also include on-demand Blockbuster movies that Dish customers will be able to watch on their TVs.